My First Chips

[Chrisjh]

At long last!!!

After many teething problems (some caused by hardware failures which I was able to overcome (lucky I am a very experienced electronics technician) and some due to lack of knowledge on my part) I have machined a part.

The machined piece is part of an oil filter adaptor that I designed a few years ago. It allows the use of a much lower cost oil filter to be used on some Toyota diesel engines. Haven't sold many because there seems to be very little interest but it was a good exercise in learning G Code programming.

I used the wizards in Mach3 to do the basic programming and then modified the code to my satisfaction using notepad. This would appear to be easy but I made a lot of mistakes along the way. However the main thing is that I learned from the experience.

Now to get futher into programming. I initially tried to use BobCad Cam and Lazy Cam to program but because I don't know what to do once I get the dxf files into the program, I went back to coding using wizards and hand editing.

However I am very happy with what I have been able to achieve so far.

For those who may ask, I didn't use the coolant option I have for this machining task, rather I used my trusty manually operated squirt bottle containing a mixture of Rocol and kerosene. The material is 6mm thick 5083 Al. I used an 8mm 3 flute HSS cutter @ 1500rpm and 200mm/min feed rate for the 6 holes and outer circumference and a 4mm HSS 4 flute cutter @ 2500rpm and 150mm/min feed rate for the O Ring Groove. The centre tapped hole was done manually and was used to support the 91mm square material for the CNC operation in my trusty 5" Vice.

I'm not sure if the photos I selected will appear with this post as it it my first attempt.

Photo 1 shows lots of chips from the 8mm cutter.

Photo 2 shows the finished product.

Photo 3 shows my mill.

I hope to post some more on the journey to this point as I am sure that I have some info on preventing the mistakes that I made and modifications that I performed to my Syil CNC Mill.

Chris

[syil]

Very cool,you make desk by yourself? very good looking~~
enjoy it.
Xushuo
Syil,China.

[Chrisjh]

Hi Xushuo,

I made the coolant tray myself but have realized that I have fitted it too far to the rear. I intend to move it more towards the front which will place it better under the table.

I fabricated it with a 20 x 20 x 3 angle iron frame, hand bent up some 0.9mm Zinc Anneal Steel sheet by hand in a vice with some more angle iron as the clamp for the bend lines and pushed like hell (Human Panbrake). Ended up with some nice big radii along the bend lines to make it easier to clean. I then spot welded the lot together, added the coolant drain ang got it powder coated satin black. Came out nice (except for my positional mounting mistake).

I got the tray idea from on this forum. (Thanks to the guy who posted his ideas). The longer term intention is to add splash guards later using the 20 x 20 x 3 frame to attach splash guards and front door.

Here is a photo of the tray setup before the mill was added to the stand.

Regards

Chris